Finding Peaches in the Desert

by Uschuk, Pamela

• ISBN13: 9780930324599
• ISBN10: 0930324595
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Wings Press

Summary

This is the first collection of poetry by American Book Award winner Pamela Uschuk. FINDING PEACHES IN THE DESERT won the 2001 Literature Award from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council. Luis Urrea wrote of this book, "Whether she writes of the sexy quiet of marriage . . . or the lacerating political rage that bursts out of many of these pages, Uschuk maintains the light that burns in her chest. All the landscapes here – from the desert's rumpled floor to the poet’s own bed to the torture chambers of Chile – are alive and vivid with this light." Joy Harjo calls it a "sensual garden."

Author Biography

Pam Uschuk is editor-In-Chief of the literary magazine, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts and a professor of Creative Writing at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Uschuk's literary prizes include the the Struga International Poetry Prize, the Dorothy Daniels Writing Award from the National League of American PEN Women, the 2001 Literature Award from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council for Finding Peaches in the Desert, The King’s English Prize, as well as the American Book Award and awards from the Chester H. Jones Foundation, Iris, Ascent, Sandhills Review, and Amnesty International. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages, including Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Spanish, French, German, Korean, Macedonian, Swedish, Russian, and Spanish.

Table of Contents

FINDING PEACHES IN THE DESERT
Finding peaches in the desert	3	(2)
Theories of light	5	(2)
Scorpion season	7	(3)
Smooth razor	10	(4)
Clean memorials	14	(1)
Feeding javelinas in the foothills	15	(2)
The night my father became an Aborigine	17	(3)
Another full moon poem	20	(2)
The year we lived above the albino dwarf	22	(3)
The Minotaur	25	(3)
Watercolorist in the stream	28	(3)
Domestic passion	31	(4)
BATHING IN KACHINA HOT SPRINGS
Bathing in Kachina Hot Springs	35	(10)
CALENDAR OF THIRST
It is precisely	45	(1)
Late elegy	46	(2)
Calendar of thirst	48	(5)
Rattler	53	(2)
Without the comfort of stars	55	(3)
Simon's story	58	(2)
New science	60	(1)
To make the bull ascend	61	(1)
Caretaking	62	(2)
Through the dark, a brilliance	64	(3)
Parole	67	(4)
Late winter storm	71	(4)
Walking on the other side of twilight	75	(4)
WAITING FOR RAIN
Waiting for rain	79